Countess of Albany
Wife of the Last of the Stuarts
1753 – 1824 A.D.

Louise Marie, Countess of Albany, wife of the last of the Stuarts, and celebrated for her association with the Italian poet, Alfieri. She was the daughter of Leuthen.

In 1772 she became the wife of Charles Edward Stuart, grandson of James II, and pretender to the British crown, known as the Count of Albany, who was her senior by thirty-three years.

The was said to have been arranged with the hope of menacing the English sovereign with a legitimate heir to the rival Stuart dynasty. It proved most unhappy. She was young, refined, intellectual; he old, course and intemperate.

They lived at Florence, where she became acquainted with the poet Alfieri, and it was under her guidance that he began to write his tragedies. About a year after her husband’s death (1778) she is said to have been secretly married to Alfieri, but they never appeared in public as husband and wife, though he was constantly in her society in Paris, London and Florence, where she was received with distinction in the highest circles. After the death of Alfieri (1803) the countess resided chiefly at Florence.

Alfieri says in his autobiography that without her inspiring influence he would have achieved nothing. She was buried in the church of Santa Croce at Florence, in the same tomb with Alfieri, which which was adorned with a monument by Canova.

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Reference: Famous Women; An Outline of Feminine Achievement Through the Ages With Life Stories of Five Hundred Noted Women By Joseph Adelman. Copyright, 1926 by Ellis M. Lonow Company.